Pop That Goes Crunch!

Put The Needle On The Record: Bright And Shiny Power Pop

The last two posts have discussed the AM rock and roll radio experience of the late-60s and early-70s. That kind of music — un-pretentious, hook-and-melody-laden and devoid of big statements and philosophizing — can still be found if you know where to look.

One of those places is right here, in this post. Embedded below is a playlist that I uploaded to 8 Tracks containing full-length versions of songs from my personal collection. The playlist has fourteen tracks, clocking in at about 46 minutes. That’s a reasonable approximation of the quantity of music contained on the LPs from days gone by. The title –“Put The Needle On The Record”– was chosen with that in mind.

Several of the acts represented — The Shazam, The Grip Weeds, Starbelly, Eytan Mirsky, Lannie Flowers, Sun Sawed in 1/2 — have been discussed in recent posts on this site. Many of the songs have that “Raspberries quality” — ringing guitars, simple declarations of romantic yearning, and that trademark “bright and shiny” sound — discussed in last week’s post. The best examples are the songs by Myracle Brah, Starbelly and Love Nut — each of which feature the incomparable Andy Bopp as either the principal artist or producer — and the tracks by Chris Richards and the Subtractions and  Blue Cartoon.

Here is the track list:

1.   “Talk To Me” — Myracle Brah

2.  “Calling Sydney” — The Shazam

3.  “Infinite Soul” — The Grip Weeds

4.  “She’s So Real” — Starbelly

5.  “Don’t Do Anything Tonight” — Chris Richards and the Subtractions

6.  “Another Week Or Two” — Eytan Mirsky

7.  “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” — Eugene Edwards

8.  “Give Me A Chance” — Lannie Flowers

9.  “You Should Have Known Better” — Blue Cartoon

10. “If You Go Away” — Love Nut

11. “I Love You Baby (But I Hate Your Friends)” — The Dahlmanns

12. “Janet Greene” — Sun Sawed in 1/2

13. “Valerie Loves Me” — Material Issue

14.  “Time Wraps Around You” — Velvet Crush